Keos: It’s Pronounced ‘Chaos’

So I was going to go off to Keos (why do I think we’re going to be starting a lot of days like that?) but there were side quests in Attika and, you know, side quests.

So I did the side quests. They all involved Socrates, who I wish would just shut up and have some hemlock already. I take it you haven’t done them. But you will someday, because you’ll have to cuz cultists.

So remember that guy with the mine I was trying to track down? The slave guy? Well, in the middle of the last damn quest, the guy is all “I want you to kill so and so” and I say “Why?” and he’s all “The Cult of Kosmos needs her dead,” and IT’S THE GUY! After all that, he just TELLS YOU! Then, after banter ensued, the quest ended, and he was JUST STANDING THERE with his back to me. So I killed him.

You’ll get there. We’ll talk. It’s something we shall have thoughts upon. But, after all the searching, talk about an anticlimax.

AND! AND! Guess where he was? Go ahead. Guess. C’mon guess HE WAS RIGHT BY THAT FUCKING SILVER MINE IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO GET INTO! So if I had NOT magpied, just followed the way the game was guiding me, I’d’ve found him, then BOOM cultist clue nearby, THEN done the mine.

This game, you see, does not want us to magpie. It wants us to follow the breadcrumbs.

We should just go to fucking Keos. Where I’ve already been cuz I magpied.

Also, regarding the magpie and the game’s desire that we knock it the fuck off, we really should get on with getting on with things because the more I see fall approaching, and the more I see gameplay from the Outer Worlds, and the more I hear it has great companions, and the more I think that Death Stranding is coming out in the fall as well, the more I think maybe I don’t want to be assassinating dudes too far into the fall. Not that I’m not liking this game, but DAMN when was the last time we had three AAA games that we’ve been into dropping in a six month span?

Cuz I also lose a week, you know. Soon it’s once again time to TRAVEL BLOG WITH BUTCH! The readers will thrill to Butch’s adventures as BUTCH TAKES SOUTH BEACH, BABY!

They’ll love it. It’s gonna be great.

Feminina:

I also did side quests in Attika! Went after that guy Kleon wanted me to find in the quarry. Remembered I’d already cleared out the quarry a week ago (although of course it had been restaffed in the meantime), so at least I didn’t have to bother with killing the captain and finding the treasure. (I actually quite enjoyed that quarry at the time. Lots of interesting levels and hiding places.)

Found the guy, who was a TOTALLY different H-name guy than the Heitor you were looking for, although while in that general area I did pick up the Heitor quest. Did pick up a clue about a cultist once I went back to my ship, which I did because of ship-related reasons that only Kleon’s dude can tell you about. Probably not in any way related to the cultist you were looking for clues about, who turned out to actually just be standing there.

Was randomly attacked by a shipfaring mercenary known, counterintuitively, as “The Terror of the Land.” (I suppose he swoops in on his ship to terrorize coastal cities? Still. Odd choice of name.)

Now I have to go back to Athens to talk to Kleon and Allie. And probably Sokrates because that dude does talk.

And man, it’s true, we do have a lot of stuff on the horizon that we potentially want to play. Including what’s-his-name-Cage’s latest, which we got for free last month and haven’t looked at!

At least nothing new in August. It’s just Wipeout Omega and Sniper Elite 4, neither of which interest me.

Butch:

Shit forgot about that! And we never did play Life is Strange two.

Better get going here.

Not that I can right now. Spending yet more money on junior. School is expensive.

Feminina:

And Divinity: Original Sin 2!

There’s a lot going on.

You know, with the time we spent on Red Dead Redemption 2’s epilogue, we probably could have played at least LiS2.

I will never really forgive that epilogue.

Butch:

Shit I had forgotten that one! Jeez. We better go to Keos.

I wasn’t going to forgive that epilogue anyway, but when you put it that way, I’m even less likely to forgive it.

Ok! Now that I’m out of money, back to blogging!

So which Attika quests? I did the ones where I had to forge name, that led to “get me a witness,” then “break into the playwright’s house” popped by the statue of Athena, did that, that made another Socrates quest pop in the port place (this one was about a horse thief), and then the quest where you help a slave popped by the silver mine.

Much more efficient to chase exclamation points than question marks.

Probably a T SHIRT!!!!! that.

I haven’t done fuck all for Kleon. I kinda forget what I’m supposed to do for Kleon. What am I supposed to do for Kleon? I thought it was “Hey, man, if you see a Spartan fort, kill the polemarch and tell me, m’kay?” So I was just waiting to magpie in Sparta.

Feminina:

That’s what I was thinking too, re: Kleon, but it turns out he’s specifically interested in the polemarch in one particular Spartan camp, which is right outside Athens. So you’re in the general area already.

It leads to a moderately involved bit with a ship, if you’re in the mood for that. Though I seem to recall that everyone involved was about level 29, so maybe come back to it later.

Chasing exclamation points is all very well, except then how are you going to hit all the question marks? WHAT IF YOU MISS SOMETHING?!

And I know many rational people would say “if I don’t get to it through exclamation points, I’ll just go back for it later on,” but what if you never do? What if you finish the game without getting back to that lion cave to kill that Alpha Animal?

The horror. THE HORROR.

And sure, rational people would point out that if you didn’t get around to doing it during the course of the entire game it probably isn’t that important, but THEY CAN’T BE SURE OF THAT.

What if we miss story? Romance? A statue of Naked Zeus being naked?

The soul quails in terror.

In short: I’ll never give up the magpie. You can’t make me.

Butch:

Oh THAT place. Yeah, I know the place. When I was running the fuck away from killing the cultist in downtown Athens (let’s just say I wasn’t really at my best stealth wise), I ran like holy hell and, when I stopped, it was all “You are by an untracked target,” to which I said “I am?” and boom. Fort.

You do know you’re going to end up playing the game twice, right? The first time you kill everything everywhere, and then the second time you kill everything everywhere.

Probably for the best I’m going to strut my stuff on South Beach. Let you catch up while I’m KILLING IT with the beautiful people.

Feminina:

Naw, because the second time I go back, I sometimes don’t even bother to kill anyone! I’ll sneak in, do whatever I need to do, and bolt out again.

Doesn’t always work. I’ll admit that. Sometimes you do wind up having to kill everyone all over again. But many times, you can say “OK, I don’t have any location objectives here, don’t have to kill any captains or burn any war supplies, so I’m out. Later losers!”

I’m not ashamed to run like hell away from a fight if it will save me the time and annoyance of having to fight a bunch of dudes for no reason.

Butch:

We’ve been differing in this game more than usual, and here’s another difference: “No reason” means different things to us at this juncture.

I mean, dude, why do you need boots that are obsolete the minute you loot them? What did that alpha animal do to you?

I guess I read the word “practical” between “no” and “reason.” Silly me.

Feminina:

Yeah, you did. Don’t do that.

My reason is: “it says so in the location objections, and I must get that checkmark on the map that says I completed this location.”

Also, I promptly dismantle those boots and use the soft leather to upgrade my ship, so don’t scorn loot you can’t wear. It’s still useful, man.

Butch:

It’s funny though, as you aren’t a completionist in any game that doesn’t have “Assassin’s” or “Creed” in its title. Before you go all “But I didn’t like RDR2 enough to collect all that shit,” I point out you didn’t do every hunting ground in HZD, you didn’t get every moldy flag in DAI (a lot of them, but not all), etc. You don’t have platinums in your trophy case. And yet, in these games, you are all “MUST. HAVE. CHECKMARK.”

It’s very unlike you.

Because, ok, fine. You like AC. But I have been blogging with you a very long time, and I can tell you have played games, we have played games together, that you like more than this one. This game is fun but neither of us are gonna put it on our “top games I’ve ever played ever ever” list. And yet….here you are, doing the complete thing you don’t even do in games that are on your “top games I’ve ever played ever ever” list.

It’s weird, dude. Weird.

Feminina:

I don’t know, man. Consider Fallout. Or the Elder Scrolls games I’ve played. Like this game, they are full of question marks, and as with this game, I compulsively sought out every single one. Did I actually get to every single question mark in FO4? Maybe not. Because they didn’t necessarily show up until you got kind of close to them, and some of them I may have missed. But not for lack of trying. And did I get to every single one I actually saw? I’m pretty sure I did.

I think it’s the question mark itself, to be honest. There’s something about its curling shape, its hint of wonder, its suggestion of mysteries to be solved, that I cannot resist.

Because there are non-question mark things in this game that I’m not going after. I’m not obsessing about killing every single mercenary. I’ll only kill every single cultist if, as we suspect, you have to do it to finish the game. I’m ignoring conquest battles on every side.

Apparently there’s an arena somewhere that at some point you can go to and fight other mercenaries in, and I’m not going anywhere near that unless it’s absolutely required.

And take Mafia III: I didn’t bother to drive in a single race at the racetrack, but did I seek out every point on the map in every single territory? You better believe I did.

So I don’t know, I don’t think I’m doing anything especially out of the ordinary for me.

Question marks. On the map. They cannot be allowed to stand.

If you have found a way to make peace with leaving question marks on a map unexplored, I salute you, but your path to contentment is not mine.

Butch:

Dude, I left playboys undiscovered. I left NUDITY undiscovered.

I suppose you are, at heart, a discoverer. A wonderer. An optimist. You always have hope that next question mark will be something great…something other than a bandit camp or a wolf den, despite the fact it always is one.

Wait until your kids are older. Then your soul will be crushed. You’ll run by all the question marks cuz you’ll know the truth: They just cost money.

Feminina:

It’s up to Future Us to look back upon this day in a few years and see how that turns out. You could be right.

You are the one with the crushed soul, after all.

Speaking of crushed souls, that’s another thing that’s coming out someday…more The Last of Us. There’s a lot to get to. Fortunately, much of it not released yet, but still a lot.

Butch:

I think that one’s a while off. I can’t imagine it’s coming out before the PS5, which is, what, MAYBE Xmas 2020? But Outer Worlds is October, Death Stranding is November, Cyberpunk is April. AND Divinity and Detroit? I mean….

Maybe it will all give us excuses to procrastinate when it comes to playing TLOU2, which I’m not necessarily sure I’m looking forward to…..

Feminina:

Yeah. We will have many opportunities to put off that bit of soul-crushing. Maybe we’ll get around to it when the actual world is less apocalyptic.

So never.

Damn, TLOU turns everything dark really fast.

Butch:

I know. It’s a game I feel I should play, but not a game I want to play. The other games we’ve mentioned today? Want to play.

You know….we don’t HAVE to play it…..

Feminina:

It’s true. We don’t, do we? We might just never get around to it. Even if it’s totally amazing and everyone says it’s the best game ever.

It could happen. Let’s leave our options open there. It’s a comforting thought.

Butch:

Indeed it is. We must remember that this is our hobby. Despite our lengthy complaints about the games we play, we do this for fun. Fun, I say! And, while blogging is as much fun, and TLOU2 is probably going to be bloggage from here to there, we can blog about pretty much anything. ANYTHING.

We have limited time, after all. It’s a precious resource. We wouldn’t waste precious drinking time on booze we didn’t like, now would we?

Well, we would. But only if there was no other booze to be had. But there is other game booze to imbibe, so imbibe we can. Shall. Will. Must!

Feminina:

Yes! We drink soul-crushing booze only when all the other booze is gone!

We don’t HAVE to play soul-crushing games until all the other games are played.

So, never.

Butch:

Indeed, never.

Especially as we’re never going to finish the game we are currently playing.

However, the booze I currently have in my house is doomed.

But dude I usually say this sarcastically but this time I’m serious.

You’re gonna love Keos.

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About Feminina O'Ladybrain

As a woman, Feminina O'Ladybrain loves skimpy armor, the Smurfette Principle, and being rescued. She also enjoys setting things on fire, and is unusually fond of shotguns.
She likes lady games, such as 'Lady: The Game,' but since that doesn't exist, she plays a lot of series, like 'Dragon Age,' 'Mass Effect,' and 'Assassin's Creed.'